Updated, June 8, 12:05 p.m. PT: More details from LimeBike have been added to the story below.
If you need a LimeBike in North Seattle today, your best bet would be to head for the parking lot behind Ballard High School.
An epic prank by seniors at the school resulted in dozens of bike-share bicycles being parked in the spaces reserved for cars. Bikes from LimeBike, Spin and Ofo are seen in photographs shared on Twitter and reported on by the community website MyBallard.
Seniors unleash a bikesharing prank at Ballard High this morning… https://t.co/F7hak3CqkH
— My Ballard (@myballard) June 8, 2018
Need the investigative reporters at @myballard to solve: how did scores of @limebike fill every spot in Ballard High teacher parking lot?? @theheadbeaver #senioritis #prank #endofschool #teachersdontgetpaidenough pic.twitter.com/WuYqFrTLIQ
— Eric Souza (@ECSouza) June 8, 2018
I live near the HS, saw a couple of guys wrangling e-bikes down the alley off of 65th. The whole time the bikes were saying, “Stop! Or I will call the police!”
— Parker (@rparkerjr77) June 8, 2018
“Big props to the seniors, this is outstanding!” Principal Keven Wynkoop said in the MyBallard story, which noted that senior prank day is an annual event.
Another tweet was equally hilarious in that it showed the cluster of LimeBikes on one user’s smartphone app, which is used to locate and unlock the nearest bike.
I know where I need to go to get a Lime Bike now… pic.twitter.com/3uaSaXO41w
— jf (@jhfrazier) June 8, 2018
English teacher Gordon MacDougall told KING 5 that a student told him that LimeBike may have delivered a truckload of the bikes, but a spokesperson for the company later confirmed to the station and GeekWire that it did not participate in the prank, but helped clean up afterward.
KING 5 also reported that a porta-potty was placed in the principal’s parking space with a sign on front that read “Head Beaver.” Ballard High’s mascot is the Beavers.
And it seems the kids at Ballard weren’t the first to pull off such a stunt. LimeBike itself blogged last month about a prank at Rockford East High School in Illinois, and used the opportunity to comment on what it all says about American car culture.
LimeBike, Spin, and Ofo and their green, orange and yellow dockless bikes are a colorful presence in Seattle these days. A recent report by the Seattle Department of Transportation said that the bike-sharing program has led to 10,000 bikes in the city, which have been ridden 468,000 times from July 2017 to the end of the year.
The prank seems like a fun enough diversion compared to other ways the bikes have been mishandled. And it’s definitely better than the dangerous vandalism that has included the cutting of brake lines on some bicycles.
